


i'll crawl home to her

by regancy



Category: Anastasia - Flaherty/Ahrens/McNally
Genre: Gen, Wakes & Funerals, i dont even have an excuse for this one i just enjoy hurting gleb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-08-02 06:56:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16300232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regancy/pseuds/regancy
Summary: He longs for home, if only he knew where that was anymore.





	i'll crawl home to her

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this fic a long time ago but I'm pretty happy with the way it came out so why not publish it, right?

He longs for home, if only he knew where that was anymore.

Ekaterinburg with its constant reminders of his father and the Ipatiev House’s memories of a frightened family peering through the windows and screams echoing in the courtyard is no longer a safe haven. Ekaterinburg, he thinks, is haunted.

Gleb is almost grateful to leave his old home behind. In every moment of silence, he hears the sound of a singlular gunshot resounding throughout the house.

St. Petersburg is different and fresh. A new beginning, which is ironic he supposes.

*

The weather feels appropriate, heavy cloud cover with the low rumbles of thunder in the distance. A funeral procession passes through the cemetery with heaving boots upsetting the fresh snow. The cool air leaves his fingers numb even in their gloves, but he doesn’t loosen his grip on the bouquet in his hands. Beside him, his mother pushes his grandfather’s wheelchair through the snow, he catches her eye and she gives a thin, watery smile through her veil. His grandfather sits up in his chair, his hands are clasped formally in his lap, nothing about his even suggests grief, but he’s never been one for outward displays of emotion. Gleb wishes he could say the same for himself, but his eyes are blurry with tears and his hands shake violently the entire walk.

The procession is almost painfully slow, he’s just behind the priest and he feels the gazes of others on him. His coat, he realizes, must stand out as well, he’d chosen to wear his father’s overcoat, it fits him surprisingly well and he wonders when he’d grown so much. The coat’s color is supposed to blend into its surrounding but among a sea of black it sticks out like a sore thumb and he sees several people stare at the red badge over his breast. Some give respectful salutes, others glare, but the procession trudges on.

They arrive at his father’s final resting place, a small plot of land at the very back of St. Nicholas Cemetery. His father would have loved the view, just yards beyond the wall the waters of the Neva River lap against each other and beyond that St. Petersburg bustles with life.  
His father promised to bring him here once, when he was very young.

Stepan had pulled his son into his lap and said “Мальчик мой, one day you will see St. Petersburg in all her glory. The Neva flows further than the eye can see!”

There’s only a stone cross bearing his father’s name and a mound of dirt to its side. The mourners form a semi-circle around the casket as the pallbearers lay the coffin in the ground. From the corner of his eye, Gleb sees his mother cross herself and press a kiss to her rosary. He can’t bring himself to watch them. Instead, he focuses his gaze upwards to the bare trees, glittering with frost. A songbird lands on a branch and ice shards fall to the ground.  
The priest begins reciting something from his bible, and he’s only half listening to the priests interminable droning.

His mother lightly nudges him in the ribs, waking him from his reverie and he realizes everyone is looking to him. He has been practicing his eulogy for weeks but when he begins to speak his voice audibly shakes, he sounds like a little boy talking about how much a great man his father had been. He somehow finishes the speech without bursting into tears. The priest nods and Gleb takes a handful of dirt and clutches it in his palm before tossing it into the grave. Several people give him sympathetic smiles or rub his shoulders when he rejoins the crowd. Everything else fades into a dull blur and before he knows it, the priest releases everyone in peace.

The funeral over much too quickly and he feels so empty when it is. It feels like the last link with his father has been severed, and it hits him with a rush that his father is gone. He is going to return to Ekaterinburg to a home with only his mother. No one is going to use the office upstairs anymore. No one poring over papers in the parlor late into the night.

In front of the tombstone is a fresh mound of dirt over the coffin where his mother kneels, praying reverently. He wonders what she prays for anymore. Most of mourners have left and the ones still around mill in small groups, talking among themselves. Occasionally a person will break away from their group to talk to Gleb. He’s sure their words are supposed to console him, but he doesn’t think anything could do that anymore.

“Stepanovich!” someone shouts from behind and he sees a group of men, one of them ushering him to them.

“What’s your name, boy?” the one who’d shouted his name asks.

“Gleb”

“Gleb,” the man says, as if testing the name out “that’s a good name, strong and robust! I’m Ivan, that’s Sergei, Vaska, Ilya, Konstantin, Pytor and Nikoli” he says, pointing to each man in turn. They all look familiar but he doesn’t think he’s met any of them before.

“How did you know my father?” Gleb asks and the men burst into rapturous laughter. The one named Vaska answers through the cigarette dangling from his lips “We worked together.”  
Gleb nods, not sure he wants to hear more.

“Your father was a good man, Gleb, you understand that don’t you?” Ivan places a comforting hand on his shoulder “He wanted what was best for Russia and that’s what we all want.”

With the hand not on Gleb’s shoulder, Ivan digs through his coat, pulls out a silver flask and holds it above his head.

“To Stepan Yuryevich Vaganov.” he announces and pours some clear liquid on the ground. “And to Gleb Stepanovich.” With another pour.  
The other Bolsheviks pull out their own flasks and repeat Ivan’s words in muddled unison. One of them hands Gleb his flask and indicates for him to take a drink. Gleb takes a hesitant sniff and scrunches his nose-it smells like medication-but he takes a large swallow of it anyways. 

The vodka burns its way down his throat and he splutters as the men laugh. Even after he’s swallowed the heat of the alcohol lingers in his throat and his belly.

“How old are you, Gleb?” One of the men-Ilya, maybe - asks.

“I-I’m seventeen”

“Seventeen! You’ll be ready to join the fight soon, won’t you.” More of a statement than a question.

“Of course he will.” Ivan injects, the hand on Gleb shoulder is patting him on the back now.

“He’s a soldier, I can see already.” He fixes Gleb a brilliant smile, all sharp white teeth and pink lips.

Gleb doesn’t get a chance to respond before Ivan’s gaze is behind him. The other man’s smile growing until it’s too wide to possibly be natural.”

“Madame Vaganov, I presume? A thousand apologies for your loss.” Gleb’s mother only gives the man a brief nod. 

“If you’ll pardon me, gentlemen but Gleb and I really must be going.” 

“Of course.” Ivan releases, Gleb’s shoulder from his grip. “We’ll be seeing you very soon, I hope.” Gleb is almost positive that it’s directed at him.

He walks the length of the cemetery with his mother in silence. Sonya Vaganova lifts her veil and smooths it over her hair. Beneath the fabric the weight of her grief is visible, eyes are bloodshot and her skin a deathly pallor. She looks like she’s aged a decade in the last two months, and Gleb is reminded of the countless nights in Ekaterinburg of him seeing the light in her bedroom staying on and the sound of sobs bleeding through the walls. He is reminded that he is not the only person grieving.

“You’re too young to be associating yourself with those people.” Sonya says at least, breaking the silence between them. 

“Why?”

“You are not a child, Gleb. You know what they’ve done.” She snaps.

Gunfire came first and then the screams, sharp and piercing, into the Vaganov’s parlor. Sonya looked up from her sewing at her son, who’d been reading on the floor.

The violence only lasted for a few minutes but the silence afterwards was something Gleb would never forget. Heavy and thick with unspoken words.

Things had changed, and everyone knew it.  
“It was necessary.”

“If that’s what you think, you’re a fool!” she barks, turning to face him with blazing eyes. 

“Whatever your father did-what he chose to do was his decision and he paid for it. It is not your cross to bear, Gleb’ka” her voice softening with the final words, she lays a hand on his cheek.  
Stepan Vaganov returned home soon after, he said nothing to his family and instead sank into an armchair and buried his face in his hands.

“Do you think he did the right thing, mama?” Gleb asks, holding his mother’s ice blue gaze.  
She closes her eyes and sighs, “Only time will tell, рыбка.” 

*

Ten years later, a man returns to Ekatrinburg for the first time in a decade. He is fresh off a train from Paris, still dressed in his suit and his pistol tucked into the jacket pocket, and he’s not ready to return to Leningrad, not yet.

He stands outside his childhood home too long, willing himself to go inside. He knows what he’ll find inside, everything almost the same as when he last saw it. No one has lived here in the six years since his mother died. He remembers spending her last days at her side as the illness wore away at her body and mind. He remembers throwing himself into work when he returned to Leningrad and locking the house’s key in the bottom drawer. With a deep breath, he forces the door open.

Everything inside is covered in either a thick layer of dust or a white sheets. From the window the man can see the Ipatiev House and it brings a fresh bout of nausea has he remembers the barrel of his pistol pointed at the forehead of a woman in Paris. She hadn’t been the first person at the firing end of his gun but he wants her to be the last. 

He moves through the house like a ghost, a small cloud of dust rising from the carpet with each of his steps.

A quick search through the kitchen shows that the only thing that hasn’t already been eaten by vermin is a small bottle of vodka that he thinks might be older than he is. He carries the bottle to the parlor and rubs his thumb over the label.  
“To the Vaganovs.” He whispers and takes a large swig from the bottle.

In the ten years since his first drink, the taste isn’t any less foul to him. It burns his lips and feels gasoline burning its way to his stomach, but he enjoys the warm, heady feeling it brings and he downs the entire thing.

Above the fireplace a house hangs a portrait of a family. They’re in their Sunday bests with huge smiles gracing their faces. The mother sits in the center of the picture, her son next to her and behind them the father stand with a hand on each of their shoulders.

Dropping the bottle, he lifts the picture of its hook and wipes the dust off the glass of the picture with his handkerchief until it glints in the low light. The family smiles at him and guilt fills him as he looks into the faces of each person in the image, and he can’t help but feel that he’s failed them all.

He knows what will happen when he returns to Leningrad, he will stroll into his office and greet his comrades. Around noon he will receive a call from Gorlinsky and his superior will be told that the fake Anastasia has been dealt with, he wonders if he will be awarded for it. Maybe he’ll get a promotion. The thought makes him laugh at how little that means to him now.

“Are you proud of me?” he desperately asks the photograph in his hand. Unsurprisingly, the photograph doesn’t answer.

He thinks he knows what the answer is anyways.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this! Please let me know your thoughts!


End file.
